Deathgaze

To find Deathgaze...yeah, finding Deathgaze tends to be a pain. There are 4096 'tiles' on the Overworld Map. Deathgaze possesses one of them. If you cross that tile with the Falcon, Deathgaze will attack you. Deathgaze will remain on the same tile until you fight him; if he escapes, he'll possess another random tile. Altitude doesn't matter.

You'll just want to fly around, searching for him. Make sure that you watch your levels; Deathgaze will instantly kill any character whose level is divisible by 5, so a group where two or more characters are vulnerable to Lv. 5 Death should be trained a little. Put on some good music while you're at it; Searching for Friends (the theme playing when flying the Falcon) gets repetitive after a while. May I suggest Soulwax, partly because they're awesome and partly to boost European economy?

No restrictions. However, Vanish/Banish, Vanish/Atom Edge, Vanish/True Edge, Vanish/Oblivion and Vanish/Snare all cause the final bit of 'Deathgaze has died' to not be set (as that's his final 'counter', so to speak), meaning that you won't gain the cutscene at the end. This means no Bahamut Magicite either. What you do get if you use one of those attacks is that Deathgaze will have gained back all HP and will be still available for you to defeat, so you'll have gained nothing in the end. Other ID attacks won't result in this sad situation, however, so Vanish/Death and Vanish/Antlion and such (any others I didn't mention to avoid above) are all fine.

You've heard it all over the place... Deathgaze soaring over the skies of this new world, terrorizing all in its path. An ancient demon who knows no remorse; no satisfactory pack of unlikely heroes could possibly let this continue! Deathgaze is a relatively simple yet tough opponent, so prepare well.

Deathgaze will start every battle by using Lv. 5 Death; Safety Bits and Memento Rings protect against it if your level is right (or wrong, depending on your interpretation), but it's most likely that you don't have the former and can't use the latter, at least when you first encounter the thing. Deathgaze may cast an Blizzaga or Death spell in its the first turn, and may cast Death or use Aero the second. After every two turns (not counting the initial Lv. 5 Death), Deathgaze has a 66% chance of using Escape to flee the battle. When damaged, it may counter with Battle, as all bosses tend to do.

So Deathgaze has inherent Safe and Shell status boosts, a weakness to Fire- and Holy-elemental attacks to consider, the ability to absorb Ice- and Poison-elemental attacks and no status ailment vulnerabilities to exploit. How are we going to take this guy down as effectively as possible?

Breaking Rods have always been powerful, but against Deathgaze, they're a blessing; since spells executed by breaking Rods gain a barrier-piercing property, you'll be able to break Flame Rods for a barrier-piercing Fira spell and Holy Rods for a barrier-piercing Holy spell (the latter is much more powerful). Dragon Horn Jumps with a Holy Lance are pretty powerful (though the damage inflicted is impaired by the Safe status), but if your Edgar is still working with the Golden Spear, you should stick to Gigas Glove with Drill/Chain Saw. Phantom Rush is also barrier-piercing so that works rather nicely. Setzer's GP Rain surpasses all his other forms of damage output. For other characters: Terra, Celes, and Relm should cast Firaga, Holy, Fira (in order of preference), Umaro should not be equipped with a Blizzard Orb as Deathgaze absorbs Storm; Berserker Ring/Gigas Glove is the way to go.

Never mind Mog's Dances, they're far too weak here; Dragon Horn Holy Lance Jumps or his strongest spells are the best alternatives for this character. Gau's Io-induced Flare Star will deal 9999 damage with every Flare Star while nullifying the effects of Aero; Gau's Rage will cast Flare, which is decent enough, and with the inherent Undead property, he won't have to fear the Death spell. Strago should stick to Traveler (or if he has it), Shadow should throw Holy Rods or Flametongues (Holy Rods are stronger) or even plain Fuma Shurikens if you don't have any elemental weapons to abuse, and Gogo is probably best off Raging Io if possible or throwing out Phantom Rush attacks (via Mimic, of course). Locke equipped with a Valiant Knife delivers barrier-piercing damage to begin with and Cyan should stick to Gigas Glove-boosted Fang attacks (the only other barrier-piercing attack he has is and we can't wait that long). Note: I know that Flame Shields are even stronger than Holy Rods. This is only by a small margin though, and Holy Rods are far easier to acquire in bulk in addition to being less useful in other battles. Expand Full Strategy

Sorry for the text-behemoth, there. The theme you should pick up from it is speed. You probably have only two turns to damage this thing, and you can heal afterwards anyways. Equip Reflect Rings on everybody and go all-out offensive with your strongest attacks. When a character goes down, revive him or her; you shouldn't have to bother with healing beyond that (as long as you remember to do it as soon as you're out of the battle!). A combination of Reflect Rings and Thunder Shields or Minerva Bustier will give you immunity to the Death and Blizzaga spells (bounce off) and the Aero attack (Wind-element is nullified).

Deathgaze will take a long time to take down if you're not breaking Rods, and you may have to find him quite a few times if your level is low. However, once you defeat him, you'll gain the Magicite remains of the Bahamut Esper. That's good! Not only does the god-king of all dragons teach Flare at a x2 rate (Flare is very powerful, barrier-piercing and non-elemental!), his summon attack Sun Flare is extremely powerful, barrier-piercing, and non-elemental. You'll enjoy him on your side. Trust me.